Official Control in Slaughter and Game Handling: Expectations and Prerequisites for Implementation of Remote Meat Inspection in Sweden.

Autor: Hunka AD; RISE Research Institutes of Sweden AB, Sven Hultins plats 5, 41258 Gothenburg, Sweden., Vanacore E; RISE Research Institutes of Sweden AB, Sven Hultins plats 5, 41258 Gothenburg, Sweden., Medin I; Control Unit Southern Sweden, Control Department, Swedish Food Agency, Dag Hammarsköldsväg 56 C, 752 37 Uppsala, Sweden., Gjona E; RISE Research Institutes of Sweden AB, Sven Hultins plats 5, 41258 Gothenburg, Sweden., Kautto AH; Control Unit Southern Sweden, Control Department, Swedish Food Agency, Dag Hammarsköldsväg 56 C, 752 37 Uppsala, Sweden; Department of Biomedicine and Veterinary Public Health, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Ultuna, Ulls väg, Ultuna, 750 09 Uppsala, Sweden.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Journal of food protection [J Food Prot] 2024 Jan; Vol. 87 (1), pp. 100196. Date of Electronic Publication: 2023 Nov 20.
DOI: 10.1016/j.jfp.2023.100196
Abstrakt: Remote meat inspection is currently not permitted under the European Union food control legislation. However, the environmental impact of travelling to and from abattoirs and increasing shortages of qualified veterinary staff make remote controls a potential future scenario. This paper reports the results of a qualitative study conducted with a sample of nineteen official veterinarians and food business operators in Sweden. We investigated attitudes, perceived risks, and prerequisites for remote meat controls in semi-structured interviews. Results indicate both positive attitudes towards remote meat inspection, and concerns related to technical challenges, reliability and security of data transfer, and possibilities of manipulation of the remote system. Respondents also noted both negative effects, such as physical hurdles for good control, and positive impacts on animal welfare, such as shortened waiting times for slaughter. Considering the current regulatory framework, only 21% of the respondents have had any prior experience with (pilot) remote meat inspections and the additional 11% carried out remote inspections of Food Chain Information documents. Nevertheless, all participants, including the majority without any prior experience in remote inspections, assumed that remote inspections would be done via video streaming. The optimal setting for a remote meat inspection, according to our respondents, seems to be a combination of cameras at fixed locations with body cameras worn by assisting abattoir personnel. Overall, remote meat inspections are possible to introduce but not without significant legal and technical adaptations as well as definition of the conditions for this type of control flexibility.
Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper. Acknowledgements The authors would like to extend their gratitude to dr. Derek Diener at RISE Research Institutes of Sweden for the final language control.
(Copyright © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)
Databáze: MEDLINE